Roman Lutheran leader: ‘Francis is our bishop’

St. John Paul II visited the church in 1983, as did Pope Benedict in 2010.

“For us Lutherans in Rome, he [Pope Francis] is our bishop,” Jens-Martin Kruse, the church’s pastor, told the Italian news agency SIR. “Not in the legal sense but in a symbolic sense.”

“The times are definitely not good for faith and for Christians,” Kruse added. “Even in Italy, the churches are empty. There is, then, a common task is to find new ways to help people to approach anew the pages of the Gospel and have a personal relationship with God.”